4-site GP partnership: 50+ hours back per month and 8% off locum spend

A 4-site GP partnership in the Midlands had grown by acquisition over five years. Each site retained its own locum arrangements — some used a pair of trusted agencies, others had grown an informal internal locum pool of GPs and ANPs known to the practice. There was no single view across the group of how much was being spent on locum cover, what rates were being paid, or which suppliers were performing.

The partnership's practice manager — covering all four sites — was spending more than a day a week chasing CVs, reconciling timesheets, and matching agency invoices to actual shifts worked. Locum rates varied by up to 15% across sites for the same role. The internal locum pool was being underused because there was no systematic way to put a vacancy in front of internal GPs before reaching out to agencies.

Ember VMS was implemented with all four sites onboarded simultaneously. The internal locum pool was loaded into the platform's bank module. Agencies were brought onto standardised rates. Job posting, candidate review, and timesheet approval consolidated into a single workflow.

The practice manager recovered around 50 hours per month. Internal locum fill rate rose from roughly 30% to 55% of vacancies, capturing margin previously paid to agencies. Total locum spend across the group fell by 8% in the first six months.

The practice manager has since taken on additional group-level operational responsibilities that had been deferred for years for lack of time.

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